Empty Nest
by Shelacula
Summary: Even a woman like Hawke has her breaking point. Without a family to keep her in Kirkwall, Fenris can only wait and hope there's something left to draw her back. Post-All That Remains.


**AN: This has been in my archives for so long I nearly forgot about it. I present to you, more Fenris/Hawke angsty drama! ;)**

He had never seen Hawke angry before.

He had not, in fact, ever seen her with anything but that customary smirk and an irreverent word on her lips. It was infuriating at times how jovial she could be in the worst of situations – that she could laugh as she swung that monster of a blade around the battlefield with awe-inspiring skill and grin when he warned her of the dangers of keeping a half-mad mage in their ranks.

She had giggled when he cut a man to pieces in front of her.

She had even kept up a brave face and a smile when he'd left _that_ night (the night he refused to let his thoughts linger on).

Now, as her eyes raged and those once smirking lips pulled back over clenched teeth, Fenris wondered if he didn't miss her joviality.

Hawke had not smiled since she'd arrived wild-eyed at his doorstep in the middle of the night, begging him to help search for her mother. She had not laughed since they'd roused Ander's from sleep in his clinic, nor when they dragged Varric from his suit in the Hanged Man.

The mirthful glimmer in her gaze died as they found the blood trail smeared through Lowtown.

Her skin had blanched white and waxy once they'd realized where it led.

And when they'd found the demons beneath the hidden passage of the abandoned foundry, she'd let loose the kind of scream he'd thought only existed in Varric's tales. She didn't stop to examine the foreboding portrait tacked to the rough walls nor the books and notes scattered in haphazard abandon across the floor. He knew she saw them because he heard the creak of leather as her fists curled tight around the hilt of her blade.

Then, there in the back room as a mage with eyes that seemed too deep in his face and too bright against the dark bruises around them prattled on and on, he watched the thin facade she'd constructed shatter.

Her mother – a monster, a conglomerate fueled by _blood magic_ no less – stumbled forward and he watched as the last of the Hawke he remembered broke apart.

Fenris could only do his best to keep the line of corpses and shades from digging claw and arrow into her unguarded back. He heard her incoherent shouts as she bounced again and again off the barrier the mage had constructed and then – the last of the corpses fell and he felt the barrier pop.

He turned just in time to see Hawke fall upon the frail man. She was the flame of rage compressed to human form, heating the air with her anger. The fire licked in her vibrant eyes and she threw the blade aside and _hit_ him over and over -

Blood splattered over her face, smeared down the bridge of her nose, stained her hair. The mage struggled but his staff was long gone and Hawke was too strong and before long _those_ movements had stopped too until all that remained was a red smear where his face might have once been.

Varric and Anders lingered, wary, uncertain how to handle her but then her mother, what was left of Leandra Hawke, stumbled forward and Hawke's attention was dragged away.

Fenris looked away as she shared last words with her remaining family, unable to stand the sight of the tears that slipped over her reddened cheeks. He vaguely registered her shouting at the Abomination, demanding he do _something_ – _anything! - just_ fix _her!_ \- and had to focus his thoughts somewhere else. Anywhere other than this constricting, tight tunnel coated with the stench of rot and blood and foul magic.

Varric nudged him and Fenris knew what they expected. Varric had a meaningful frown and Anders stared at him with vitriol in his gaze as if _Fenris_ had somehow caused this and it wasn't just another display of the faults of magic.

But Varric was still scowling and Hawke was sobbing brokenly because her mother's rasping voice had finally fallen silent and there was nothing left in her arms but a mix-up of different bodies preserved too long.

Fenris felt sick seeing it. Leandra was - had been – kind in her own way.

This was not a fate she deserved.

It took courage for Fenris to cross the room, to crouch beside Hawke as she cried and her tears turned the dry dirt beneath her dark. His hands were gentle and they _shook_ as he pried her arms loose, when he dragged her to her feet. He turned her away before Varric and Anders crossed the room to cover the body.

Though she couldn't see, Fenris suspected Hawke was listening as the dwarf whispered a litany of prayers – _Oh, Maker_ – and curses but the Abomination was silent. Perhaps he saw the destruction magic had wrought at last.

Fenris still said nothing as Hawke pulled herself from his hold but he watched as she vanished alone into the shadows.

He did not deserve to be the one to comfort her and he didn't blame her for knowing it. His empty hands clenched around nothing and the phantom memory of her warmth still lingered on his fingers.

Leaving Anders and Varric to deal with the body, Fenris vanished from the choking tunnels, leaving behind the cloying scent of blood and despair to escape into the Lowtown night.

* * *

Hawke did not return home that night.

They didn't notice at first. When she didn't appear at the Hanged Man, they had assumed she was in mourning. Fenris had wanted to be the one to go to her, to hold her when she cried.

He didn't.

It wasn't until Isabella had burst into Fenris's mansion, her dark eyes wide and her usual composure scattered, that he realized something was amiss. "Hawke is gone," she gasped, as if she had sprinted the entire length of Hightown and back again. "Orana and Bodahn haven't seen her since – since -"

He didn't need to ask. Fenris and Isabella spent the night combing all of Kirkwall and the outlying coast with little success. By the time the sun had crested the craggy cliffs, Fenris had nearly worked himself into a frenzy. Where had she disappeared to? She was nowhere within the city, of that he was certain. Was she hurt?

Varric was their last option – and yet the dwarf had nothing new to tell them. With all his contacts and eyes in every inch of the city, even he didn't know where she had gone. Hawke had simply vanished into the air.

Fenris did not sleep well that month.

Just when he feared he was losing his mind to the constant worry and guilt – _if I had stayed with her, if I hadn't walked away –_ he heard a faint knock over the crash of thunder.

He assumed it was Isabella or Varric. They had taken to checking on him, perhaps to ensure that he didn't disappear from the city as well. Varric's endless search for the missing woman and constant prattle kept him sane. "Don't worry Broody, we'll find her," was an endless mantra they'd all taken up in the long weeks since Hawke's disappearance. They hovered around him, as if they feared he would break without her there to keep him together.

And maybe he would.

When he threw open the door, he had to squint through the deluge of rain and fog that had descended on Kirkwall.

He nearly slammed the rotting door shut again, convinced a specter stood before him.

"Fenris. Can I come in?"

It was her voice. There was no mistaking it. Shocked and unable to form the right words, he shuffled aside and allowed her to sweep in. She carried the clean smell of rain and brine with her.

The drab, gray coat she'd had tossed over her head was soaked through and it fell with a heavy, laden sound to the broken floor.

Her hair was longer. It was the first thing he noticed once he'd gotten a good look at her. Not by much. He doubted the others would be able to see.

Hawke looked tired. There was a weariness in her eyes that he hadn't seen before.

There were hundreds of questions perched on the tip of his tongue. _Where did you go? What have you been doing?_

 _Why did you leave?_

What he asked was, "Would you like a glass of wine?"

Hawke's wry smile was grateful and, despite how soggy she was, the most beautiful thing he'd seen in all the long, lonely weeks they'd been apart.

She crossed to the fire and sat on the floor without sneering at the dirt and grime he'd never bothered to scrub away. The only sound was the gurgle of wine as he poured it into one of his few clean – unbroken – glasses and the steady _drip, drip, drip_ of water as it spilled from her shaggy hair.

Hawke took the glass from him with shaking hands. He stood beside her and waited, saying nothing as they stared together into the fire. If she wanted to speak with him, she would come to it on her own time. Hawke was back, and that was the most important thing.

Her sudden, abrupt laughter startled him. He glanced down at her, and she was staring at him with a trace of that old glimmer in her eyes. "I never would have thought you could be a patient man, Fenris," she said. Her full lips moved, like she was about to smile.

Fenris scowled. "I cannot force you to speak." As much as he might wish to.

She couldn't see how his fingers were clenched tight at his sides, or how his insides twisted up on themselves. He'd spent dozens of sleepless nights worrying for her, yearning for her and now she was within reach.

"I needed to get out of Kirkwall," she said. "I didn't have a destination in mind, though I had the wild, vague idea that I would find my way back to Ferelden. Somehow."

He held his breath and said nothing.

"You know, I wasn't going to come back." Her eyes, so bright in firelight they seemed to glow, slanted towards him, as if she were waiting for a reaction.

His teeth ground together and he waited for her to continue.

"I didn't feel like there was anything left for me here – after all, I'd come to Kirkwall to protect my family." Her laughter then wasn't the gentle, carefree sound he'd come to recognize. It was bitter and sounded rough in her throat. "And now I have no family left to protect. All of them gone – every promise I'd made, broken. I failed them. I thought I could escape their memories if I ran far enough away."

"You told me running away solves nothing," Fenris said, harsher than he'd meant. Perhaps he was being petty, but he felt stung that she'd nearly abandoned him – _them_. All of them.

Her smile was hardly a smile at all. "Yes, well, I'm back aren't it? I couldn't leave you here all alone in this big mansion now could I?" She didn't stumble over her words as he might have in her place. Her gaze was strong and focused, daring him to see, to answer in kind.

He didn't. He averted his eyes and cleared his throat. She'd always been stronger than him in this way.

"Have you told the others yet of your return?"

Hawke looked stricken for the briefest moment before it was consumed by incredulity. "I came here first. Do you want me to leave?"

" _No._ "

His answer came a little too quickly and she caught it with a grin – a _real_ grin. He felt better for having been the one to cause it, though his cheeks burned. He cleared his throat and took her empty wine glass, if only to give his hands something to do. He was not accustomed to these quiet moments between them. Not any longer.

"I was – _we_ were – worried," he said, quietly.

Hawke's sigh seemed loud in the echoing hollows of his skeletal mansion. "I'm sorry," she said. It sounded genuine. "I needed to get away. I don't know what I would have done if I'd stayed. And don't tell me you wouldn't have followed if I'd told you," she said, cutting him off.

He conceded her point with a grumble.

"Do you know what I did? As I wandered the coast?" She asked suddenly, quietly. She sounded unsure of herself and _ashamed_.

Fenris didn't speak, but he turned to look at her. _Really_ look at her. She was dressed in the same armor she'd worn that night in the foundry but it was newly dented and pitted. Obviously uncared for. Dried blood chipped away from the seams like rust.

Hawke's eyes were wide and guileless as she watched for his reaction. When he said nothing, she seemed to force herself to answer. "It was... Bandits at first," she said. "And then it was _other_ people – blood mages, apostates. Every time I feel magic, I see his face – I hear his _voice._ And all the anger comes back."

Her eyes were haunted, shadowed and deep in her face. "I butchered them, Fenris." Her voice broke on his name.

Silently, he sat beside her. He didn't tell her how it disturbed him to see her so upset. He couldn't bring himself to look at her. "If it is condemnation you seek, you'll find none here," he told her. "Bandits and blood mages have more than earned their fate at the end of your blade."

She snorted. "Don't let Merrill hear you say that," she said on a watery sniff and lifted her face. Her eyes had a damp sheen but there were no tears, at least not anymore.

"You've done nothing wrong, Hawke," he said. "And you are not to blame for what happened."

"Somehow, I believe it when _you_ say it. It might just be that voice of yours, though," she teased and the shadows fell away from her features when he stared back in bafflement.

Her lips curled up in a familiar expression. The warmth of the fire was reflected in her grin when she pressed up against him, her shoulder bumping his playfully. Fenris stiffened, his jaw set. She had not been so carefree with her touches since –

"You were always best at making me feel better," she muttered. She was still shivering. Her armor was heavy and she was soaked to the bone.

He was warmed by her words, but he responded only with something vaguely unintelligible and gruff. She laughed and the sound was like bells. "And you were always best at being _grouchy_ ," she corrected. She was leaning on him now, her head cradled in the curve of his shoulder.

"Will you leave again?" He couldn't help but ask.

Fenris felt her smile on his skin. "No, I don't think so." There was still a sadness in her voice but it was subdued. He wondered at her strength, at the steely, determined core she possessed. She had lost everything and still she could laugh.

It should have been uncomfortable, being so close. Between them rested a thousand unspoken words and the weight of his mistake. The knowledge of his cowardice made him fear that he would flee her again. But here, with Hawke back in his life and by his side, the last thing he wanted to do was run away.


End file.
